In the village of Debanaag, no rain fell for three long, hot years. The livestock--250 cows, goats and donkeys--died one by one, and the herdsmen and their families for whom the animals were the main sustenance faced hunger, then starvation. With her only child weak and sick, Ardo Sulub, 30, set off on foot on a 100-mile trek across the arid range land of southern Ethiopia in search of food and medical assistance. For 15 days, the ethnic Somali woman says, she walked in withering, dusty heat.

In the village of Debanaag, no rain fell for three long, hot years. The livestock--250 cows, goats and donkeys--died one by one, and the herdsmen and their families for whom the animals were the main sustenance faced hunger, then starvation. With her only child weak and sick, Ardo Sulub, 30, set off on foot on a 100-mile trek across the arid range land of southern Ethiopia in search of food and medical assistance. For 15 days, the ethnic Somali woman says, she walked in withering, dusty heat.

More than 1.5 million Somalis may starve to death unless the world helps the eastern African nation, which has been ravaged by war and drought, a U.N. official said Friday. "Without an immediate injection of support from the international community, the lives of over 1.5 million Somalis are under threat," Ian MacLeod, a U.N. Children's Fund official in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, said in a statement.

The food supply in sub-Saharan Africa is better than it has been in years, despite continuing shortages in some nations plagued by drought, poor harvests and civil strife, says a new report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Food aid and cereal imports are expected to decline by about 58% for the rest of this year, but most of sub-Saharan Africa's four dozen or so nations will still be able to meet their food demands.

More than 13 million people facing starvation in Ethiopia and Sudan will need 1.5 million tons of food aid in 1992 despite higher-than-average harvests this year, a U.N. agency said Monday. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said 6.1 million drought victims, displaced people and demobilized soldiers and their families in Ethiopia will need 880,000 tons of emergency food.

The food supply in sub-Saharan Africa is better than it has been in years, despite continuing shortages in some nations plagued by drought, poor harvests and civil strife, says a new report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Food aid and cereal imports are expected to decline by about 58% for the rest of this year, but most of sub-Saharan Africa's four dozen or so nations will still be able to meet their food demands.

Koos Durr knelt on a patch of the fertile soil that for years has put the milled white corn known here as pap on the tables of millions of black families in southern Africa. His chapped hand grasped a stalk, which crumbled into dust at his touch. "If we can survive this year," the 54-year-old farmer said later, lighting a Gold Dollar cigarette, "then I think we will be able to stay in farming. But this year is our crossroads. Our future depends on what El Nino does."

The trees across vast stretches of southern Africa have turned white with thirst. The grass has vanished, leaving bare earth. Dry riverbeds have cracked like brown checkerboards. And tens of thousands of emaciated zebras and giraffes, antelopes and wildebeests rest silently in the hot shade, ignoring the rising stench of rotting animal carcasses. Human beings will survive this drought, the worst in these parts in 60 years, and they will restore their decimated cattle herds one day.

Millions of people in six African nations--Sudan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Liberia, Angola and Somalia--face death from starvation because of drought and conflict, and available relief supplies are strained to the limit, U.S. officials said Friday. The most critical situation is in Sudan, where an estimated 9 million are at risk and the government initially delayed the start of a new relief program, said Michael Harvey of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.

Southern California commercial fishermen, who have been rubbing their hands in anticipation of an expected ocean full of fish this summer, are having to wait a little longer. But the promise of El Nino holds true. El Nino, the name given to unexplained sporadic periods of warming in the Pacific Ocean off South America that have been linked to everything from droughts in Africa to floods in California, has raised water temperatures off the Mexican and Southern California coasts up to 6 degrees.

The trees across vast stretches of southern Africa have turned white with thirst. The grass has vanished, leaving bare earth. Dry riverbeds have cracked like brown checkerboards. And tens of thousands of emaciated zebras and giraffes, antelopes and wildebeests rest silently in the hot shade, ignoring the rising stench of rotting animal carcasses. Human beings will survive this drought, the worst in these parts in 60 years, and they will restore their decimated cattle herds one day.

More than 1.5 million Somalis may starve to death unless the world helps the eastern African nation, which has been ravaged by war and drought, a U.N. official said Friday. "Without an immediate injection of support from the international community, the lives of over 1.5 million Somalis are under threat," Ian MacLeod, a U.N. Children's Fund official in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, said in a statement.

Koos Durr knelt on a patch of the fertile soil that for years has put the milled white corn known here as pap on the tables of millions of black families in southern Africa. His chapped hand grasped a stalk, which crumbled into dust at his touch. "If we can survive this year," the 54-year-old farmer said later, lighting a Gold Dollar cigarette, "then I think we will be able to stay in farming. But this year is our crossroads. Our future depends on what El Nino does."

More than 13 million people facing starvation in Ethiopia and Sudan will need 1.5 million tons of food aid in 1992 despite higher-than-average harvests this year, a U.N. agency said Monday. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said 6.1 million drought victims, displaced people and demobilized soldiers and their families in Ethiopia will need 880,000 tons of emergency food.

Millions of people in six African nations--Sudan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Liberia, Angola and Somalia--face death from starvation because of drought and conflict, and available relief supplies are strained to the limit, U.S. officials said Friday. The most critical situation is in Sudan, where an estimated 9 million are at risk and the government initially delayed the start of a new relief program, said Michael Harvey of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.

El Nino is back, threatening to shatter the world's normal weather patterns for the third time in less than a decade. An El Nino--"the child" in Spanish--is a warming of tropical waters in the Pacific Ocean that occurs every three to five years. It can generate all kinds of devastating weather, from droughts in Africa to flooding in North America.